Two Actors try their hands at stage comedy.Two Actors try their hands at stage comedy.Two Actors try their hands at stage comedy.
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Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaFilm was made by the 'Historical Feature Film Company [us]' which was a white-run company; but, distributed by the Ebony Film Company [us]' to make it appear that it was released by a black-controlled company.
- Quotes
Knight I: We'vll all dall up.
Featured review
and who exactly were these "stupid blacks"?
For me one of the most irritating aspects of commentaries on films of this period featuring African American artists is what I have called elsewhere "reverse racism". This is a process by which the substance of the films is generally summarily dismissed, no interest is shown in the performers, who are assumed to be of no real significance, and the story becomes rather one of how these performances were exploitative and degrading and presented negative images of black people. Seemingly anti-racist (and many critics proudly emphasise this supposedly anti-racist line),it seems to me in fact just another way of being racist.
We are, bear in mind, in 1915, the year that saw the appearance of Griffith's racist epic British of a Nation and the revival of the Ku Klux Klan. The two are not isolated instances; they form part of a perfectly conscious attempt (announced by Thomas Dixon as the basis of his series of books, one of which provided the basis for the Griffith film) to "revise" US history in a manner more acceptable to Southern white supremacists.
Amongst the immediate reactions to the Griffith film was the formation in Chicago (the city par excellence of the Great Migration) of the Historical Feature Film Company (1914) and of the Lincoln Motion Picture Company (1916) by George and Noble Johnson. The latte was, it is true, a more distinguished enterprise (concentrating on "drama") and black-owned. The Chicago venture was more downmarket (concentrating on vaudeville and slapstick comedy)and run by whites.
Nevertheless HFFC was an important attempt to promote African American performers and the artists it employed were anything but insignificant. Of the four who are credited here, Frank Montgomery (who has no entry on IMDb where he is confused with a white actor/director of the same name) and his wife Florence McClain were producers of vaudeville shows with a national reputation. Montgomery himself was a skilled songwriter and choreographer who also worked for white shows. Jimmy Marshall seems to have been a relative unknown but Bert Murphy was a huge Chicago star (a sort of Chicago Bert Williams), both performing solo and, with a certain Miss Francis, as the duo Murphy and Francis.
It is true that this film was attacked by the black newspaper Chicago Defender (regrettably, I think) as purveying the usual black stereotypes but this was very much not HFFC's intention and it was sensitive to such criticism. In 1917 it changed its name to The Ebony Film Company and employed Luther J. Pollard as its President and General Manager. Pollard was anything but a "coloured front man", was an active partner in the business and deplored negative stereotypes. His brother Fritz (who also worked for Ebony) would later found New York City's first black owned newspaper, The New York Independent News.
Under Pollard's management, Ebony produced comedies that, in Pollards, own words, "proved to the public that colored players can put over good comedy without any of that crap shooting, chicken stealing, razor display, water melon eating stuff that the colored people generally have been a little disgusted in seeing. You do not find that stuff in Ebony comedies." They also employed, inter alia, in their films the 40-stroing George M. Lewis Stock Company and Sam Robinson (brother of the great Bojangles). Ebony folded in 1919 and the Chicago Defender's attack (and a subsequent attempt to exclude their films) was probably very largely responsible.
There was, it is true, a problem about showing blacks "behaving badly" even if this was a rather necessary condition of slapstick comedy. Here for instance the two guys are disruptive in a theatre (as were innumerable white comics in similar comedies) but one can se how this presented certain special problems at a time when the Chicago Defender was waging a campaign against an increasing tendency towards segregation in vaudeville theatres.
It nevertheless seems to me wrong to dismiss these early attempts to give screen-access to black performers (see also my review of the Lubin "colored comedy" Rastus Among the Zulus. Lubin also employed important vaudeville artists) and wrong to condemn them simply because they were white-owned. The Chicago Defender made, in my view, a foolish error in hounding Ebony. It is rather the presence of the black performers that should be welcomed (and this comedy is certainly no worse than the average "white" comedy) and their important contribution to US performance culture (particularly on the stage)that should be celebrated.
When we ignore the artists concerned and are content to dismiss the characters as "stupid" - do we talk about "stupid whites" when we discuss Keystone films? - we are not really attacking racial stereotypes, it is actually the performers we are characterising as "stupid blacks" for being involved in the film.
We are, bear in mind, in 1915, the year that saw the appearance of Griffith's racist epic British of a Nation and the revival of the Ku Klux Klan. The two are not isolated instances; they form part of a perfectly conscious attempt (announced by Thomas Dixon as the basis of his series of books, one of which provided the basis for the Griffith film) to "revise" US history in a manner more acceptable to Southern white supremacists.
Amongst the immediate reactions to the Griffith film was the formation in Chicago (the city par excellence of the Great Migration) of the Historical Feature Film Company (1914) and of the Lincoln Motion Picture Company (1916) by George and Noble Johnson. The latte was, it is true, a more distinguished enterprise (concentrating on "drama") and black-owned. The Chicago venture was more downmarket (concentrating on vaudeville and slapstick comedy)and run by whites.
Nevertheless HFFC was an important attempt to promote African American performers and the artists it employed were anything but insignificant. Of the four who are credited here, Frank Montgomery (who has no entry on IMDb where he is confused with a white actor/director of the same name) and his wife Florence McClain were producers of vaudeville shows with a national reputation. Montgomery himself was a skilled songwriter and choreographer who also worked for white shows. Jimmy Marshall seems to have been a relative unknown but Bert Murphy was a huge Chicago star (a sort of Chicago Bert Williams), both performing solo and, with a certain Miss Francis, as the duo Murphy and Francis.
It is true that this film was attacked by the black newspaper Chicago Defender (regrettably, I think) as purveying the usual black stereotypes but this was very much not HFFC's intention and it was sensitive to such criticism. In 1917 it changed its name to The Ebony Film Company and employed Luther J. Pollard as its President and General Manager. Pollard was anything but a "coloured front man", was an active partner in the business and deplored negative stereotypes. His brother Fritz (who also worked for Ebony) would later found New York City's first black owned newspaper, The New York Independent News.
Under Pollard's management, Ebony produced comedies that, in Pollards, own words, "proved to the public that colored players can put over good comedy without any of that crap shooting, chicken stealing, razor display, water melon eating stuff that the colored people generally have been a little disgusted in seeing. You do not find that stuff in Ebony comedies." They also employed, inter alia, in their films the 40-stroing George M. Lewis Stock Company and Sam Robinson (brother of the great Bojangles). Ebony folded in 1919 and the Chicago Defender's attack (and a subsequent attempt to exclude their films) was probably very largely responsible.
There was, it is true, a problem about showing blacks "behaving badly" even if this was a rather necessary condition of slapstick comedy. Here for instance the two guys are disruptive in a theatre (as were innumerable white comics in similar comedies) but one can se how this presented certain special problems at a time when the Chicago Defender was waging a campaign against an increasing tendency towards segregation in vaudeville theatres.
It nevertheless seems to me wrong to dismiss these early attempts to give screen-access to black performers (see also my review of the Lubin "colored comedy" Rastus Among the Zulus. Lubin also employed important vaudeville artists) and wrong to condemn them simply because they were white-owned. The Chicago Defender made, in my view, a foolish error in hounding Ebony. It is rather the presence of the black performers that should be welcomed (and this comedy is certainly no worse than the average "white" comedy) and their important contribution to US performance culture (particularly on the stage)that should be celebrated.
When we ignore the artists concerned and are content to dismiss the characters as "stupid" - do we talk about "stupid whites" when we discuss Keystone films? - we are not really attacking racial stereotypes, it is actually the performers we are characterising as "stupid blacks" for being involved in the film.
Details
- Runtime11 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.33 : 1
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